Chairs Message

Welcome to the UC San Diego Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. We are excited to share what’s new in ECE as we strive to develop and graduate “complete” engineers while producing world-class research.

We are proud of our history providing an undergraduate curriculum that builds on strong theoretical fundamentals, and we are excited to complement this knowledge base with courses and programs with practical applications.

This past summer we launched a Summer Research Internship Program (SRIP), which afforded our students an opportunity to join a faculty lab for the summer to participate in original engineering research. As a result, 49 undergrads and 40 master’s students had the opportunity to enrich their program of study through the experience of participating in research in many different areas of electrical and computer engineering. Students in the inaugural SRIP worked in labs dealing with robotic locomotion, augmented reality, robotic surgery, wireless charging, modeling brain circuits, as well as acoustic signal processing, to name a few of the research topics. In addition to working with faculty in the lab, students took part in workshops on communication, technical writing and presentation skills. Our ultimate goal for the internship program is to enhance our students’ success by helping them prepare for graduate school, obtain fellowships and industry internships, and, ultimately secure a job after graduation.

Our curriculum continues to grow with new hands-on course offerings and several new courses on Software Systems. With the addition of new courses and programs, we are creating a multi-faceted curriculum with threads that extend throughout the entire educational experience, beginning freshman year and continuing into advanced studies in engineering.

On the research front, we are eager to share our success in expanding activity in areas including network systems, communications systems, Internet of Things (IoT) and control theory with the addition of three new ladder-rank faculty with strong research programs that will continue our long history of innovative discovery. Within these pages we share some of the world-class research of our faculty and graduate students. We also welcome two teaching faculty to our ranks. All of our new faculty are committed to creating a robust hands-on experience for our students.

Looking ahead, we are optimistic that the groundbreaking research we conduct today and the enhancements to the curriculum we continually make will shape our students into the engineers of tomorrow – ready to take the world into new discoveries we have not yet even imagined. Taken together, ongoing innovation in research and education will solidify ECE’s reputation and status as one of the best and most forward-thinking departments of electrical and computer engineering in the nation, even the world.